PYP How We Organize Ourselves

Central Idea: The act of people coming together to support community issues can be a force for change.

Lines of Inquiry:

• The needs of a community
• The responsibility of individuals towards supporting communities (think in terms of concentric circles, how do you start with yourself and move out to the bigger community)
• Impactful action

What? I took my students out to the school garden to investigate. After, we read the book The Garden on Green Streetby Meish Goldish as a class.

How? First, I reviewed in the classroom my expectations for student behavior in the school garden, including how to be responsible where we walk and what we touch. Next I posed the question: How does our garden function? After giving them 10 minutes to explore, I gathered the class back together to discuss our findings. Students reported that people, plants and animals work together to help our garden. Teachers volunteer time, parents help after school and student gardening clubs come together to keep the plants healthy. After this conversation we read the book which discusses a fictional community garden and people banding together to save the garden from construction. This book had students consider possible impactful actions in connection to the roles and responsibilities the townspeople took to make a change.

Why? Students need hands-on experiences to deeply connect to the lines of inquiry. Since this garden was on school grounds and most students had been at least one time before, this was a perfect opportunity to build on student prior knowledge. The students came away from this lesson more knowledgable about the gardening community and its needs at our school and more curious about the nature they explored during the investigation portion of the lesson.